Thursday, 31 December 2009

After going Under the Mountain, I hung around and caught the Iron Man Prequel. Robert Downey Jr is the epitome of the hard-nosed, tight-fisted, punchiest, kickiest, hittingest man of action evah! I mean, Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, not so much with the fighting, but a lot is made of how Holmes can easily glimpse a man, plan a series of moves to completely incapacitate him (which allows us to view the fight in slow motion), then do so (so we see the fight again), but this wonderful ability isn't really paid off. He only uses it to take out minor thugs, so I'm wondering if there was a deleted scene whereby he dispatched a greater villain... but I'm not sure who that could be.

Never mind, to the plot! There's a bad man afoot, and he is going to take down society through the use of MAGIC! Only if two men can combine their forces to smack their way through minor villains, and bring the girl onto their side, can they make the final boss fight. Now, fine, Holmes has been portrayed as various different types of personalities, and this one is more physical than others, but... there isn't that much made of his superior reasoning abilities to get from one set of clues to the next (there are two scenes, one which is a rip off from the books so everyone can follow along, the other being the only really proper Holmes thinking scene), and most of the time it's simply tracking down the obvious and/or being taken to the next person. The main character is called Holmes, and his compatriot Watson, but there are only superficial similarities to the characters of fame.

Which isn't to say this isn't a good movie. Good performances by the leads, fast paced direction by Guy Ritchie, and it roars along at a great pace. And what Holmesian patina there is is quite enjoyable.

So check it out, but don't expect to see a faithful reproduction of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works.